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Entering the chilly room, she found two such deliverymen, Rob and Paul, seated at the table. They were bundled up and having tea but stood from their chairs in a gentlemanly manner when they saw her.

“Good afternoon, Miss Spencer,” Rob said. He was a brawny, middle-aged man, while his counterpart, Paul, was younger and wiry. Both men had their hats off, exposing sweaty temples and foreheads, and their cheeks were ruddy too.

Leo set the handbasket on the table as they retook their seats. “Good afternoon. Did you two have a heavy load today?” She peered at the wicker basket on the floor. It was coffin-shaped, but flexible, with rope handles at the head and foot as well as at the sides.

“We should’ve brought John with us,” Rob answered, dabbing at his forehead with a kerchief. “Could’ve used the extra muscle.”

The body within the wicker basket wasn’t visible under the lid; however, Rob and Paul’s fatigued states pointed to the occupant as being rather sizable.

“Just part of the job,” Paul said with a lift of his shoulder. “At least we don’t have to work on ‘em, like your uncle does.”

“Good man, that Claude,” Rob added. Leo took a chair, cheered to hear the praise for her uncle. Rob was right; Claude Feldman was a good man. He did the work not many people would be able to do, and never once had Leo heard him complain.

He’d been trained as a surgeon, as most coroners were, and he’d practiced his trade in a hospital on the isle of Crete for many years. Then, he and his wife, Flora, had been summoned back to cold, foggy London to claim responsibility for the young niece they had never met—and had never planned for.

Childless, Claude and Flora were already quite aged when they took in Leo following the deaths of her parents and siblings. Instead of returning to Crete with their new ward in tow, Claude had accepted a position of assistant coroner at a morgue near Scotland Yard. Inspector Gregory Reid, with whom Leo had been staying for the previous two months, had arranged for the morgue position, and Leo had come to understand that it was the Inspector’s way of keeping her close to him. If Leo had not had blood relations to claim her, Gregory Reid would have happily welcomed her to stay with him and his housekeeper, Mrs. Zhao, permanently.

For many years, part of Leo had wished she could have done just that. But now, she felt only guilt at having once thought that way. While Flora had never warmed toward her, Claude instantly had, and she adored him more and more with every passing year.

With a crimp of emotion in her chest as she brought out the hand pies, she thought of how soon everything was going to change.

Claude entered the delivery room then and, after greeting Rob and Paul, took a chair next to Leo. They tucked into their meal of steak and potato Cornish pasties and ate in companionable silence while the two deliverymen chatted between themselves. A minute or two passed, and a question she’d been putting off for a few days continued to poke at her.

Finally, Leo asked, “Have you given any more thought to Chesterton Hall?”

Claude paused as he was taking another bite of his hand pie, his attention pinned onto the greasy, brown paper wrapper where pastry flakes had landed. Leo knew he did not wish to speak about it. However, Chesterton Hall was not a topic they could avoid for much longer.

“I think Aunt Flora would be comfortable there,” she said gently. “The house was lovely.”

Her uncle took his time chewing. Flora’s cognitive decline over the last year and a half had been troubling to watch. Claude cared for her as well as he could, and Jasper’s beloved housekeeper, Mrs. Zhao, had also become a fixture in the Feldmans’ Duke Street home on the days when Claude worked at Tate’s. Only Leo could not manage to care for Flora, though not because she didn’t wish to. Her aunt shrank away from her most of the time, and there were moments when she would shout at Leo, calling her a murderer, fearing her niece would kill her.

The accusations had been perplexing until she learned the reason behind them: With her ivory skin, dark sable hair, and serious, hazel eyes, Leo closely resembled her late father, Leonard Spencer, whom Flora blamed for the murders of her sister, Andromeda, and her young nephew and niece, Jacob and Agnes. Letters Leo had found from her aunt Flora to Andromeda had made it clear that Leonard was involved in something dangerous, putting both himself and his family at risk.

Now, of course, Leo knew that he’d been working for the Carters, the criminal family heading the East Rips gang, and that he had betrayed them in some way. His punishment had extended to his whole family. Whenever Flora looked at Leo, she was reminded of Leonard and ultimately, of her sister’s senseless death.

Pairing this with the deterioration of her mind, Flora had become increasingly difficult to care for. In late November, Leo and Claude had left Flora with Mrs. Zhao for the day and taken the train west to Isleworth, a town not far outside London. They’d heard from one of Claude’s old friends about a rest home there called Chesterton Hall, which specialized in caring for those who suffered as Flora did. They’d been worried the place would be little better than an asylum for the mentally insane, but Leo and Claude had been pleasantly surprised.

“The home is everything I could want for her,” Claude said after a moment, but then sighed wearily. “I suppose I find it difficult to admit the time has come.”

Leo understood her uncle’s reluctance and his emotional struggle over the decision. For so long, sending Flora to a rest home to be cared for had not been an option; Claude and Leo would never have been able to meet the expense. But now that Leo and Jasper were leasing the fine home they had quite unexpectedly inherited in October, Leo had a tidy sum in the bank.

It felt strange to have split the money with Jasper, especially when she hoped that they might share a home and future together someday soon. But as they’d only recently started courting and neither of them had broached the subject of marriage, Leo had accepted her portion of the settlement from Jasper’s solicitor and insisted to Claude that she intended to spend part of it on Flora’s care.

It was the least she could do to give them all some peace of mind.

“Perhaps we could bring Aunt Flora to Chesterton Hall after the holidays,” Leo suggested. “She could see the house and grounds for herself.”

Her uncle had started to murmur his agreement when suddenly, Paul pushed back his chair and jumped to his feet. The chair overturned, clattering to the floor.

Leo swiveled to peer at him in alarm. His coloring, only a few minutes ago flushed pink from strenuous work, had gone bone white.

“Did…did you see that?” he asked, unblinking. His eyes, round as saucers, stared at the wicker basket that he and Rob had carried in shortly before.

Leo set down her hand pie and looked at the basket. It looked the same as it had before.

“See what?” Rob asked.

As Leo watched, she saw it too: The basket moved.